This evening I went through my warm-weather clothes, paring down my piles and getting rid of stuff that I know I won’t wear again.
This is always a hard process for me. Compulsive shopper plus hoarder equals lots of stuff. Mix in a dollop of optimism (mental illness?) and you’ve got a gigantic pile of “keeper” clothes consisting of items such as a pair of leather pants that still fit but are cut in such a way that by the time they’re back in style I will be way too old for leather pants; A pair of white Tibi shorts I got for nothing at Loehmann’s that are a smidge too small and see-through. Still I imagine I will someday fit into them and not mind that you can see my panties because then I will be thin and nothing at all will bother me; and a gold pleather skirt that I wore to parties in my 30s and now think I may eventually need if I ever decide to be a trophy for Halloween. This is separate from the “Save for my daughters” pile. In the tiny “Donate” pile are things like rain ponchos bought during unexpected downpours and promotional T-shirts advertising margarine substitutes.
There is one item of clothing I  have no problem parting with, however. I was sitting amidst the heaps  when I heard my husband and daughters come in from their day, and got up from my task to go greet them at the door. I grabbed something to put on, a black denim skirt that I wasn’t sure fit. I pulled it on, pausing at an obstruction (my ass) that was a bit of a challenge, but nothing a bunch of hopping up and down couldn’t overcome. Finally, I sucked in my belly and wrestled the zipper up,  and shuffled to the door to greet them. Sasha ran up and hugged me.
“Nice skirt,” my husband said. After almost 8 years he knows to say such things. He was not taught this at the Ivy League college he attended and to which he still sends checks; I had to homeschool him on this.
“Thanks! It fits. Kinda.” I hugged Sasha back, her face at the level of my abdomen. She pulled her head back a few inches and head-butted my belly. Her forehead sprang off it like it was a mini-tramp, and she laughed and did it again. “It’s springy, isn’t it?” I laughed. You have to laugh, right?
“Yeah,” she said, laughing too. “That skirt makes it looks like your vagina is in the back and your tushy is in the front. I can do that with my Barbie.”
The “donate” pile just got a bit bigger.
Who says real women can’t have bodies like Barbie dolls?
Photo by Paul Lipson, my poor husband
April 12, 2009 at 2:55 am
I absolutely LOVE your writing, Stephanie! It’s so true to life.
Your ‘skirt incident’ reminds me of the day my goddaughter looked at my forehead and pointed asking ‘what’s that?’ (Stressing the word ‘that’ as if it was ‘the cooties’). I didn’t catch on at first so while approaching the mirror, I held onto hope that maybe it was from the chocolate she was eating or even black magic marker filling in my brows like Uncle Leo in a Seinfeld episode she might have pulled off while I was sleeping! Unfortunately, it wasn’t Uncle Leo’s brows. It was a wrinkle.
It’s amazing how honest and inquisitive kids can be in their innocence. But now that she’s cool and has to look just right for the Jonas Brothers, I manage to use that moment to remind her that one day that appalling wrinkle can be all hers if she doesn’t put on the sunscreen “You don’t want one of THESE (pointing to my forehead) do you?
April 13, 2009 at 10:32 am
OMG – I laughed my ass off. Unfortunately, not literally.
April 13, 2009 at 3:18 pm
FABULOUS! I laughed out loud. My 4-year-old has taken to head-butting my “sproing-y” belly these days… Argh…you gotta laugh, right?
April 17, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Lol. I was on a crowded bus a while ago with three year old Shane when a woman with a large stomach and tight pants sat down across from us. Shane pointed to the woman’s stomach and pelvic area and began shouting, “Mommy, that lady has a baby in her tushy!”